Hang nail time outs?

Let's let the players have time outs regardless of medical problems or not. Let them have it for the reason they often want to: to change the momentum , to gather their thoughts, take care of medical problems, and/or gamesmanship. This way, no hard feelings &amp; no questions if somebody had a legit medical problem. Football teams take a time out following a time out to psyche field goal kickers, basketball teams take time outs to break momentum and send in a different mix of players, why not have time outs to regroup in tennis? Make them of a specific number and lenght. If you deplete your time outs and roll over on your ankle...too bad. This way a player could call a time out and tell the press later, "OF COURSE I took a time out, he was killing me out there and I had to break the momentum." Thoughts?

I'm agree that there shouldn't be timeouts as they already have it between change overs. However, I don't agree with the coaching part. Other individual sports have "coaching," such as golf and boxing.

It could increase the tension and any animosity between the players. A large portion of the audience would like that but the purists would hate it.

I think Connors used to take what was effectively tactical timeouts by talking to the crowd and cameras and walking around inciting the crowd. During the rain delays at last years USO, an old Connors-Krickstein match was aired and at one stage before Krickstein was about to serve at a crucial moment Connors strutted about and shouted into a camera lens.

It's an interesting question. I think an important part of tennis is the thinking on your feet, the being able to change the momentum, to follow your example, with your playing and while your playing.

I think it would lower the quality of play overall. It always takes a certain amount of time for a good match to develop, and if players are taking breaks, this would just prolong, or recreate this getting the feel for the match.

I think this is a great idea. For one, I think it is a great compromise against having coaches on court. You can just give yourself a pep talk and come out firing, would make for better tennis if people are allowed to gather themselves for like 5 minutes or something when things aren't going right, instead of seeing marat safin tank away 10 games before he gets his act together, for example. No one can stop you from having a bathroom breaks anyways, if you gotta go you gotta go, so players can always take advantage of that. Except now, it won't be an issue whether its gamesmanship or whether you actually have to pee pee, it'll be part of the game. I say give every player 2 bathroom breaks and you can go in there do whatever you want, give yourself a pep talk, read a magazine, actually take a bathroom break, or combinations thereof.

My thoughts? Tennis isn't football or basketball. Keep it as it is as far as the pacing. Give a player the benefit of the doubt if he's injured, but if it's an obvious fake, he should be called on it. Soccer players are penalized for taking a dive, so it can be done in tennis.

What SHOULD be changed is the length of the season. Give the players a real off-season, and you'll see less injuries. Also, MORE GRASS TOURNAMENTS!

Okay, Phil, I'm back to agreeing with you again. May explain why the earth keeps shifting on its axis. 8)

But you are absolutely right. The top (or favorite) players are playing too much tennis, which means that they often are overdone or underdone at the major events, which get most of the TV airtime.

In many instances, they haven't played enough going into the event, because of injuries, or they have overplayed, and thus are nursing injuries. Or, as is happening with Clijsters and others, they can't play the event at all because of an injury.

Something has to be done, and everyone knows that, but nothing seems to be being done.

When the top players cut back (ala Hewitt last year and Federer this year), they are criticized. And when there's talk of eliminating events, there's criticism as well -- as that's where many of the non-Top 10 players make their money, and where the Top 10 get major appearance fees. And every tournament wants to maintain their turf.

You guys know the whole drill and the reasons why the season is so long. But if it remains that way, with the current level of play, injuries are going to plague both tours, and it's going to be difficult to keep "rivalries" going. It's also going to keep resulting in lots of different men's slam winners.

I'm not as worried about "rivalries," as is the TV networks. But I do like to see good tennis. With a few exceptions, we saw some pretty crappy tennis in ESPN's 100+ hours of coverage. There was some good tennis to be shown, but they chose not to show it. But when they had to show it, i.e., the semis and final, well, it was pretty underwhelming (although the men's final was dramatic for other reasons).

How about pedicures on the court?? Srchiphan recently took time-out to cut his nails. (AO 04 R4 v. Agassi) "I’ve been away from home quite a long time and the nails are getting long," smiled Srichaphan. He had to borrow nailclippers, but he cut his own nails.